How much mobile gaming can cost you?

Mobile Games Can Be Quite Expensive

Mobile games are sometimes seen as cheaper alternatives to their traditional counterparts. After all, most of them can be downloaded free of charge. Furthermore, mobile games are played on mobile devices, meaning that there is no need for players to buy either an expensive console or an expensive computer. However, it is important to remember that initial impressions can be very misleading because mobile gaming can prove to be a very expensive hobby. Stop playing online games if you’re spending more than the average gamer!

How Do Mobile Games Generate Revenues?

There are some mobile games that are offered to interested individuals through a traditional business model. Essentially, they make a one-time payment. After which, players gain access to the full range of content that can be found in the mobile game. In some cases, mobile games have additional content that can be purchased as DLC, which work in much the same manner as their traditional counterparts. Having said, these mobile games are the exceptions rather than the rule because mobile gaming is dominated by the free-to-play business model.

Chances are good that players can guess what a free-to-play business model means even if they aren’t familiar with mobile gaming. After all, it can be considered a subset of freemium business models, which have been used for software since the 1980s. Regardless, a free-to-play business model tends to mean a couple of things. One, much of the mobile game is available to players. However, if they want to access everything, they are going to need to make in-app purchases. Two, a lot of mobile games have advertising built right into them, thus enabling the people behind them to make money even if they aren’t charging the players for the experience. These two strategies are not mutually exclusive, so it is perfectly possible for players to run into both of them when they play online as well as when they play offline.

players might scoff at the idea that they will spend money in free-to-play mobile games. However, the simple fact of the matter is that mobile games have been around for quite some time now, meaning that the people behind mobile games have come up with a wide range of effective tools in this regard.

For example, one of the most common tools would be time-gating, which is when an in-app process takes real time to complete. If players are patient, they can just wait out the timer; if players are not patient, well, suffice to say that mobile games often have buyable resources that can be used to speed up the timer. Speaking of which, those buyable resources are another way that mobile games can use to encourage players to break their initial reluctance to spend. It is very common for mobile games to give new players an initial wave of these buyable resources so that they will become accustomed to using them. After a while, mobile games will reduce the amount of these buyable resources given out, thus turning a wave into a trickle. If players have gotten used to using these buyable resources, they could very well be tempted to start spending money on in-app purchases.

ad

Besides these, mobile games often use strategies that players might recognize from other products and services. One excellent example would be sales on in-app purchases, which work much the same as sales for everything else. Another excellent example would be desirable virtual goods that are available for a limited time only, thus creating extra incentive for players to spend sooner rather than later.

How Much Can Mobile Games Cost You?

These strategies have worked out very well for mobile game developers. This can be seen in how the average U.S. iPhone spent $53.80 in 2019 and then $76.80 in 2020, which can be explained by the effect of the COVID-19 crisis to some extent. However, what is particularly striking is that this outweighed every other form of in-app purchases using the same mobile devices. For comparison, the runner-up was other kinds of entertainment at just $8.10 in 2019 and $10.20 in 2020. All of this in spite of the fact that in-app purchases tend not to mean much in terms of meaningful mobile game upgrades.

Unfortunately, it is important to note that this is the average. There are mobile games out there that are run in very exploitative ways, which can have very unpleasant results when targeted at people with addictive tendencies. Thanks to that, it isn’t unknown for people to spend thousands and thousands of dollars in a single session in pursuit of desirable virtual goods that aren’t guaranteed.

Further Considerations

There is nothing wrong with people making in-app purchases for either mobile game upgrades or whatever other reason so long as they are spending within their means. However, if players are spending well beyond the average when they play online, they might want to give some serious thought to whether they can keep this up. If they can’t, they have a number of potential solutions. Stopping is one possibility. Other potential solutions range from blocking such in-app purchases to setting aside a limited sum of money that can be spent on in-app purchases every month. In this as in other things, spending beyond one’s means can lead one to financial ruin.

Related Articles